Following King Jesus: How to Know, Read, Live, and Show the Gospel

INTRODUCTION

By Becky Castle Miller

What is the difference between a Christian and a follower of Jesus?

There shouldn’t be one.

But in practice, often there is. We "Christ-ians" don’t always follow the One whose name we bear. I know, because I’ve called myself a Christian for thirty-three years, but for long stretches of that time, the religion I practiced had little to do with Jesus.

I inherited Christianity along with brown eyes and big feet. I am a preacher’s kid, which gives fair credit to my dad, the preacher, but not enough to my mom, who raised me on Bible stories and prayed with me at bedtime when I was four to ask Jesus into my heart. I lived in a Missouri parsonage and rode my Big Wheel tricycle on the short path between the back door of the house and the back door of the church. I learned to sing the praise chorus As the Deer before I learned Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. Christianity was not a part of my life; it was my life. Even though I knew all about Jesus, he got awfully buried under Christianity and the rules that went along with it. The Christianity I grew up with tried to keep me safe:

• Believe precisely this way and your doctrine will be safe. (And shun anyone who believes differently because they aren’t real Christians.)

• Follow these principles about relationships and your heart will be safe.

• Do these practices and your spiritual life will be safe.

• Stay in your place and the men in authority will keep you safe.

• Keep all these God-ordained rules, and you will have a happy, blessed life and be safe in heaven when you die.

There was only one problem: the rules didn’t work. One by one, I found out the promises were false. The rules didn’t keep me safe from a broken heart. They didn’t keep me safe from abuse. They didn’t keep me safe from Christian leaders who misused their power. My Christianity crumbled in my twenties when I realized I wasn’t safe, and I wasn’t happy, and some of the well-known Christian teachers who had made the promises and the rules turned out to be hypocrites I could no longer trust.

I couldn’t handle the feeling of my spiritual guts tumbling out, so I held myself together with the rubber bands of willpower and denial. It worked for a few years while I graduated college, got a job, got married, had a couple kids, and half-heartedly volunteered at my church. Not half-hearted because I lacked enthusiasm, but half-hearted because I was so locked up to keep myself from feeling anything that I only had half a heart to give.

Postpartum depression and repressed grief and trauma finally stretched all those rubber bands till they snapped, and I fell apart. An emotional breakdown left me crying every day, barely functioning, and fighting for my life against suicidal thoughts. That raw, empty place is where God met me in the wild comfort of the Holy Spirit and set me on a healing journey that transformed not only my mind and my heart but also my spirit. As I healed through therapy and antidepressants, I began deconstructing and reconstructing my Christianity. Through that whole painful process, I learned what Christianity was really about.

It’s not about a set of inward beliefs and outward cultural religious practices. It’s not about safety, and it’s not about rules. It’s about being transformed inside and out into knowing, thinking, feeling, acting, and loving like Jesus. In other words, being a Christian is about actually following Jesus.

Scot McKnight writes about his transformed thinking on what a Christian is supposed to be in his book One.Life:

The question: What is a Christian? . . .

My former answer: A Christian is someone who has accepted Jesus, and the Christian life focuses on personal practices of piety.

Now in my third decade of studying and teaching the Gospels, I want to sketch how Jesus understood what we call the Christian life. If we were to ask Jesus our question—What is a Christian?—what would he say? . . . Jesus’ answer, which he stated a number of times, was, Follow me. Or, Become my disciple. (Page 15)

Jesus is disruptive—he burst onto the scene bringing chaotic joy into organized religion. Jesus is weird—he healed a blind man by smearing mud on the guy’s eyes. Jesus is dangerous—he and many of his disciples got themselves beaten and killed. It turns out that Jesus never promised to keep us safe through rules. He even warned that we would have trouble, that following him was risky to comfortable lives. What he did promise was that he would be with us in the suffering. And that promise is one I’ve found to be true.

Six years ago, I accepted an invitation to move with my family to the Netherlands to serve at an international church. Growing with disciples from all over the world has taught me that following Jesus can look like seven billion different things. You can be Indian and follow Jesus. Or British. Or Nigerian. Or Chinese. You can be Catholic or Anglican or Protestant or Orthodox, Pentecostal or Liturgical (or any of these). I’ve seen it all in my church. Whatever style our following Jesus takes, there are only two rules: love God and love people. And we best learn how to live that out together with others in the church.

A few years ago, our pastor took us through The Jesus Life Challenge. We read one of the gospel accounts of Jesus’ life each month for a year, cycling through the four Gospels three times. Spending so much time immersed in the life of Jesus changed my life. It helped me continue peeling off the layers of culture and tradition and rules that the Christianity of my growing-up years had slapped on top of Jesus himself, and I learned to better orient my Christian life around what Jesus actually taught and did.

As I worked to influence the spiritual formation of my church through Bible study groups, I saw the gaps in our people’s discipleship process—and in my own. I read and researched about discipleship and tried multiple approaches to helping people become and grow as students of Jesus. Being re-discipled in this global fellowship of Jesus followers has shown me that it all comes down to this: discipleship is—Christianity is—Following King Jesus.

As I’ve studied with Scot for the past two years at Northern Seminary, I’ve grown as an academic theologian, but more importantly, I’ve grown as a follower of Jesus. Scot follows Jesus—this is evident in the ways Scot’s scholarship, his ministry, his relationships, and his everyday life are guided by Jesus. In many ways, my conversion story is similar to Scot’s. (You can read his story in the introduction to the Living the Gospel lessons.) We both grew up in church, both struggled under the weight of legalism, and both found freedom in actually becoming followers of Jesus. I don’t ever again want to think I can be an adherent to the religion of Christianity without being a daily apprentice of the Christ.

I’ve passed on my brown eyes to two of my five children, and my oldest already has feet as big as mine (and steals my shoes). I hope I’m passing Jesus on to them too, in all his complexity and simplicity. Yesterday I was walking with my four-year-old, and we passed a giant crucifix, and she started talking about Jesus and God. I began trying to explain Trinitarian theology, but she interrupted me. "I really want to see Jesus," she said.

I got a lump in my throat. So do I. I can’t wait to see him face to face.

I don’t know where you are in your understanding of Jesus and in your journey of becoming like him. Maybe you are totally new to believing in and following Jesus. Or maybe you’ve been a Christian for a long time, but you want to be re-discipled in the ways of Jesus, better shaping your life after his. Whatever your starting point, we invite you to spend the next twenty-four weeks with us learning more about what it means to follow King Jesus and to begin putting that into practice.

HOW TO USE THIS WORKBOOK

This workbook is made up of four sections that address core ideas in the life of following Jesus. The major themes are taken from Scot’s books, in this order:

• Knowing the Gospel (The King Jesus Gospel)

• Reading the Gospel (The Blue Parakeet, second edition)

• Living the Gospel (One.Life)

• Showing the Gospel (A Fellowship of Differents)

Each of the four sections has six lessons. Each lesson is divided into Personal Study and Group Discussion. You’ll spend time on your own throughout each week reading an excerpt from one of Scot’s books (abbreviations used are: KJG in Part 1, BP in Part 2, OL in Part 3, and FOD in Part 4; next you’ll read passages from the Bible and answer questions to help you study, pray, and act on what you’re learning; and finally you’ll reflect by journaling. Then you’ll get together with a small group of other people to discuss what you’re learning, to do activities to help you interact with these ideas, and to pray for each other. Before you move on to the next lesson, you’ll take time to rest.

Here’s a little more information about some of the aspects of this workbook.

JESUS CREED

When someone asked Jesus what was the greatest commandment, he said it was to love God, and he added that the second greatest commandment was to love other people. Scot calls this statement the Jesus Creed. He wrote a book by that name in 2004, and it’s also the name of his blog. This is what Scot says about the Jesus Creed:

I began a practice of beginning and ending each day by saying the Jesus Creed. Then I made myself a promise that I’d say the Jesus Creed every time it came to mind, even if it came to mind fifty times per day (which sometimes it has). What happened to me is that I became much more conscious of the need to be more loving. Believe me when I say this is dangerous to your moral health, because it calls into question both our attitudes and practices.

My proposal to you if you want to be a follower of Jesus is to begin and end each day by saying the Jesus Creed, and then say it whenever it comes to mind . . . and then watch what happens to your life. (Page 53, OL)

Scot opens each one of his seminary classes by having all the students say the Jesus Creed together with him: Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this: love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these. Repeating the priorities of Jesus to ourselves helps us make them our own priorities. In each lesson and each group meeting, you’ll say the Jesus Creed out loud—if it feels a little silly at first, keep going anyway. You might become like me and many of his other students who now feel like class hasn’t really started until we say the Jesus Creed. May these words sink deep into your heart, soul, mind, and body.

PRAYER

Jesus taught his disciples how to pray by giving them this model prayer:

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one*, for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. (Matthew 6:9–13)

Praying like Jesus is one way we can shape our lives to be like his life. In every lesson in this book, you will conclude your prayer time with this prayer, which is often called the Lord’s Prayer or the Our Father.

REFLECTION

Processing your thoughts and ideas by writing them down can help you figure out what you think on a topic. Each lesson in this book will give you a prompt for journaling to help you clarify what you are learning. These entries may also give you a useful tool to map your growth and progress. Hopefully you will see your ideas evolve over the weeks of this study, and you’ll notice how Jesus is shaping your mind and heart.

SMALL GROUP

If you are doing this study with a church, your church may have already set you up with a group facilitator, host, and other group members. If you are doing this on your own or with a group of friends, think about the logistics of your group. How many members will you have? Six people might be a good number, though you could meet with two to four or even eight to twelve. A smaller group might get to have deeper discussions but can make it harder to have enough people to consistently meet every week. A larger group may have more lively discussions but will likely have longer meetings! Decide who will facilitate the conversations, who will host your group, and when will you meet. For the facilitators, there is an appendix with tips on leading a small group to help you prepare. (Important: read through the group discussion guide before your meeting. Some of the weeks have several activities to choose between or supplies you’ll want to prepare.)

REST

Pursuing holistic health for spirit, mind, and body includes rest. Each lesson concludes with a different exercise or approach to help you learn how to incorporate rest into your discipleship.

NOTES

* Or from evil; some later manuscripts one,/ for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

PART 1

KNOWING THE GOSPEL

Our pastor doesn’t really preach the gospel very often," said a well-intentioned woman in my church.

I squinted at her over my mug. He just spent the entire year going through the Gospels, looking at the story of Jesus and encouraging us to be like Jesus.

But he doesn’t really tell people how to be saved!

Ah, I realized what she was saying. "You mean he doesn’t give altar calls very often?"

Yeah! He doesn’t preach the gospel.

I sipped my coffee to hide my smile. A few years before, I might have said the same things as my friend.

I thought of our church’s motto that we repeat together every Sunday: We the church, as followers of Jesus, will love as Jesus loved, teach what Jesus taught, and obey as Jesus obeyed. I’ve never been in a more gospel-centered church, and it has changed me.

I said, I think Pastor Matt is more focused on helping people count the cost of following Jesus and become long-term disciples than he is on making an emotional appeal for a momentary decision.

Is the gospel an altar call? Is it telling people how to pray a prayer to get saved? Is it a persuasive pitch that addresses an individual’s sin by offering them individual forgiveness and an individual ticket to heaven? When I was growing up in church and learning about the Christian faith, I would have said yes. I thought gospel meant a message about sin as the sickness and Jesus as the cure, so evangelism meant convincing people to accept that message and convert to Christianity.

I’m a big fan of the British TV show Doctor Who. The Doctor is an alien from the planet Gallifrey who travels through time and space saving the day in a vessel called the T.A.R.D.I.S. On the outside, it looks like a 1960s police call box, about the size and shape of a red British phone booth, but blue. The Doctor sometimes travels with human companions, and it’s a running gag in the show for a new companion to creak open the T.A.R.D.I.S. door and discover a massive spaceship control room—so much larger than the small exterior! Hallways lead off to a labyrinth of passageways and other rooms, including a swimming pool. The humans almost always express their shock by saying, It’s bigger on the inside! (Though one said, It’s smaller on the outside!)

As I have become more serious about studying theology and growing as a disciple of Jesus, I feel like I’m opening the door of the gospel and gasping, overwhelmed at the beauty and wonder and limitless places to explore—It’s so much bigger on the inside! I’m learning that gospel is more comprehensive, more incredible, and more all-encompassing than a short, individualistic message leading to a one-time decision. The gospel is the whole story of God and God’s people, the story that goes from first creation to new creation and hinges in the middle on the incarnation of Jesus and his life and work and teaching and death and resurrection and ascension. The gospel is an invitation to be a part of God’s work in remaking the entire cosmos.

The conflation of gospel with personal salvation decision is pervasive, and it limits the gospel. It misses the point of the gospel Jesus taught. Throughout Galilee and in all